CME Agricultural Commodities Trade Busiest Day Ever - CME E-Mini™ S&P 500® Options Break The 100,000 Open Interest Mark

CME, the largest U.S. futures exchange, realized its biggest trading day ever in its agricultural commodity markets, which traded nearly 100,000 contracts for the day. Year-to-date average daily volume (ADV) in CME’s commodity products is 59,000 contracts, up from an ADV of 39,000 in January 2004. Volume for all agricultural futures was a record 96,951 contracts, with open interest of 409,366 positions. CME Live Cattle futures had one of its strongest days ever with 57,965 futures contracts traded, the majority of those contracts -- 57,725 – trading electronically, and open interest of 143,587 contracts.

CME also set a new open interest record yesterday of 100,654 positions for CME E-mini™ S&P 500® equity options, up from 7,151 a year ago. Open interest reflects the total number of contracts that have not yet been offset or fulfilled for delivery. Yesterday was also a strong day for CME’s E-mini S&P 500 futures, which traded more than 760,000 contracts.

Launched in 1997, CME’s E-mini futures contracts are among the fastest growing and most actively traded contracts in CME history.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (www.cme.com) is the largest futures exchange in the United States and the first publicly traded financial exchange in the U.S. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on CME Globex® electronic trading platform and on its trading floors. CME offers futures and options on futures primarily in four product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange and commodities. The exchange moved approximately $1.5 billion per day in settlement payments in 2004 and managed $44.1 billion in collateral deposits as of Dec. 31, 2004, including $3.2 in deposits for non-CME products. CME is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CME), which is part of the Russell 1000® Index.

Statements in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements. More detailed information about factors that may affect our performance may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, which can be obtained at its Web site at www.sec.gov. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME, the globe logo and Globex are registered trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. E-mini is a trademark of CME. CLEARING 21 is a registered trademark of CME and New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. S&P, S&P 500, NASDAQ-100, Nikkei 225, Russell 1000, Russell 2000, TRAKRS, Total Return Asset Contracts and other trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks that are not proprietary to Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. are the property of their respective owners, and are used herein under license.